Tag: anxiety

Anxiety. For those who don’t have it, like my husband, it’s a difficult thing to understand, and for those who have it, like myself, it’s a difficult thing to explain.

From my experience, anxiety comes when control has slipped from my grasp and I must rely on the uncertain nature of, well, uncertainty.

Recently, I’ve found that I get caught up in the “how” something is going to take place, and the “what-ifs” behind every possibility. My head floats into the ethereal space between the present and the future, and I get an overwhelming fear that everything is just waiting to fall apart.

If we think about it, there’s a certain sense of arrogance in that type of anxiety, isn’t there? A belief that things will be okay if only I was in control. I’ve been in control many times in my life, and believe me when I say, I’m just as capable of screwing things up as any uncertainty out there.

These past few days, we’ve been dealing with an important obstacle with our house, and unfortunately for my anxiety, it comes with a time-crunch. A deadline approaches, stalking me like a lioness in tall grass, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, or whether or not we’ll like it when it does happen. All I know for sure is that something will happen.

Right now, I’m stuck waiting. Waiting for the gears to start moving and the tumblers to fall into place so we can open the lock on our future.

Nevertheless, I’ve been in this position before. I have been sitting, in this seat, maybe not on this couch in this house, but in this seat with this anxiety wondering what the future was going to bring. And yet, it’s always worked out. I’ve always been able to look back and say with certainty that those moments were never as bad as I had once believed. Everything happens for a reason, and I, a child of The Universe, do not have to have control for things to work out the way I want them to.

Today, I wanted to pull my head from the potential chaos it likes to visit, and bring it back to reality. I wanted to ground, and I wanted to keep my anxiety from coming back and messing with my head.

First, I found a quiet moment. While the family was entertained doing their own thing, I locked myself away in my witchy room and set to work.

I grabbed some candles, black and white- as always, blue and pink. Blue for calm, and pink for a bit of self-love and confidence. When they were lit, I burned two of my favorite incense- India Temple and Hem’s The Moon.

I surrounded my small seat in the middle of the room with grounding stones, and a bit of Lepidolite. A beautiful sparkly purple stone that contains lithium, Lepidolite erases stress. Helpful to those with depression, and containing the same element used in a lot of bipolar medicine, it is my go-to anti-stress crystal.

Then, I sat down on my little cushion, grabbed my sandlewood mala, and felt my body. I started with my toes, feeling their presence against the cold wood floor. Working my way up my body, I purposely tensed and relaxed each muscle until I reached my neck. Rolling my neck from side to side, I felt all the up to the top of my head.

I closed my eyes and settled on a mantra for my meditation, slowly repeating- with intention and purpose- the words as I used my mala and kept my mind firmly inside the body I was now very aware of. With each tiny bead that passed through my fingers, I felt myself grow more confident in my future- even with its uncertainty. With every repetition of my chosen mantra, I knew that all my witchcraft and all my wishes- along with energies of the Universe, were currently working in tandem to bring me what I desire. I knew, that even if I didn’t have control, it wasn’t needed because everything would work out- even if I couldn’t see it just yet.

When I was finished with all 108 beads, having repeated my mantra as many times, I took ten deep belly breaths. Breathing into my stomach as deep as my lungs would allow, I let any residual anxiety fly away with every exhale.

I sat that way for a countless amount of time. Sitting in my little bubble, feeling powerfully grounded, I came out of my meditation realizing something very important:

I may not be in control of my future, but I am in control of my anxiety.